Sara’s Weeknight Meals: Season 3

Episode 308: Cook Once, Eat Twice

What if you could prepare a no-fuss meal on a weeknight that gave you a head start on an even quicker meal the next night? This show will enable you to do just that. Each of the first two recipes leaves behind fully cooked components for the fridge or freezer, all ready to refashion into a new meal a day or two later.

This kind of utility speaks to my favorite way to cook, which is to open the fridge, pull out the leftovers, add a little of this and a little of that, and then sit down to a delicious new meal, as if by magic. I provide you with more direction than that in this episode, but you should definitely get into the habit of always cooking more than you can eat in one meal, knowing that you can repurpose the extra food in a later recipe. There are all sorts of one-size-fits-all dishes, including risotto, fried rice and baked pasta that can comfortably serve as the basis for a new meal, the next day.

On this show I turn one night’s spicy roast pork tenderloin into the next night’s exotic Banh Mi sandwich. And then I make a big batch of Bistro Duck Breasts and save some of the cooked duck for another tasty entree, Peking Duck Wraps.